Brought Up In Tongue End

A Memory of Tongue End.

I, like my brothers, sisters and father went to the primary school in Tongue End, at the time I started Mrs Vantol was Headmistess but was later replaced by Mr and Mrs Gore, the school had around 30 children. Meals were brought by car to the school from Deeping St Nicolas everyday and served by Mrs Hall and her mother, Mrs Biggs, in the small hall/dining room. My Mother Jean Baker was employed to look after the children during their dinner dreak.
The school, at the time I started, was in the process of being extended, although the new infant classroom had been completed the new inside toilets were still being built so the only working toilets were outside, these were pulled down within a year.
During the warmer months after dinner the children played on the playing field at the side of the school.
Once the school closed things were never the same in the village it wasn't long before the village hall went and then the small church.
I left the village in 1983 to Spalding, my parents moved away in 2003 to Bourne and my eldest brother moved to Scarborough only last year him being our last connection with Tongue End.
I am the youngest of seven children we all lived at 19 Everard Road and hand on heart I only have good memories of the 22 years I spent there.
From time to time I pass through the village, some of old families still live there, the playing field is overgrown, the village hall and church is now being used for steel fabrication, the school with its old horse chestnut tree outside is a total disgrace to the village, looking like a scrap yard, the old Norton cottages have been modernized, 300yards further along the road is the site of the house my father, Donald Baker, was born in. When we were children you could see bricks of the foundations and there was an old green petrol pump on the side of the road. Just up the road from there is the entrance to Chimney Farm, my Grandad once worked there as a steam engine operator, he had the nick name Sweater Baker. Everard Road hasn't changed although the shop/Post office is now somebody's home, heading past the old shop several new homes have been built. The old Carrington pub still stands and so does the old pub across the Glen I think it was called the Ship or mayby the Boat these are both private homes.
Heading towards Baston just as you meet what is known as Wards corner is the old skating ring this is a nature reserve flooded for that purpose, we as kids had a lot of fun there.
There isn't a lot more to say about Tongue End, as children we made our own entertainment within our surroundings.